That's right, you too can be a human lab rat, ranked as the worst science job in an annual poll conducted by Popular Science magazine.
What do human lab rats do? They volunteer for scientific studies just like rodents. For example, for the paltry sum of $15 an hour, students at the University of California at San Diego volunteered to have the nerve agent Chloropicrin sprayed into their noses and eyes. The point of the study was to determine if the chemical could be used as a warning signal in pesticides. No such luck. At the end of the study, Chloropicrin was re-registered as an independent pesticide, reports Popular Science.
No matter how bad or boring your job might be, it's better than this! Here are the 10 worst jobs in science:
1. Human Lab Rat: Voluntarily expose yourself to dangerous chemicals.
2. Manure Inspector: Test methods of removing E.Coli and Salmonella from animal manure used to fertilize crops.
3. Kansas Biology Teacher: The evolution debate consumes everything. Instead of teaching biology and the scientific method, they must teach intelligent design theory.
4. Extremophile Excavators: Hike in 125-degree weather in air filled with nauseous gases to search for a microbe that can remove arsenic from contaminated water.
5. Nuclear Weapons Scientist: Bad PR with recent FBI investigations and an intern's eye-burning laser accident have made this a rough job lately.
6. Volcanologists: They run extremely close to an erupting volcano carrying lots of heavy equipment so they can study what makes all that burning lava.
7. Semen Washer: Employed by sperm banks, their official job title is "cryobiologist."
8. Do-Gooder: You pay $3,000 for a "vacation" and you can help with scientific expeditions, such as slogging through peat bogs in Manitoba, ducking polar bears or fending off swarms of black flies and mosquitoes.
9. NASA Ballerina: NASA created a phallic-shaped robot and to officially introduce it, they hired a leotard-clad ballerina to dance with it.
10. Orangutan-Pee Collector: Just like it sounds, they collect urine from orangutans. And get peed on a lot.
Source: Popular Science
--From the Editors at Netscape
